Champions face slog ahead of Wales clash
MIKE BROWN insists England face a week of toil as they seek to improve on a unconvincing start to their RBS Six Nations title defence against France.
The reigning champions triumphed 19-16 at Twickenham on Saturday to register a 15th successive Test victory, surpassing Sir Clive Woodward’s World Cup winners to set a new national record, but it was the worst performance of Eddie Jones’ reign.
Only the final-quarter arrival of reinforcements from a high-quality bench swept the game out of France’s reach with James Haskell, Jack Nowell and Ben Te’o heavily involved in the decisive 71st-minute try.
England were subdued in the first half, proving far too passive as Les Bleus justified talk of their resurgence after years of decline, but struck through Te’o to keep their Grand Slam defence intact.
“It’s great to get the campaign off to a win but there’s lots to work on and lots to improve,” Brown said. “It was a bit scrappy at times and we didn’t do what we set out to do, but a win is a win.
“If we were looking for excuses we might say it was our first game, but we’re not a team to do that. We didn’t put out on the pitch what we wanted. We’d trained well over the last two weeks, but just didn’t do it. All credit to France because really disrupted our breakdown and then that has a knock-on effect on everything else. We weren’t physical enough. There’s lots to work on.”
Jones declared in the build-up to the Six Nations opener that England possessed the best bench in world rugby and the evidence against France is that he might be right.
Danny Care arrived at scrum-half to provide greater urgency before bludgeoning runs from Haskell, Nowell and Te’o overpowered Guy Noves’ men with Te’o’s speed and running line finally piercing the defence.
“Eddie always talks about it being a 23-man squad and it takes that effort to win matches. He doesn’t call them substitutes, he calls them finishers,” Brown said. “They’re there to finish the game whether we’re winning or losing and they did an outstanding job.
“Care lifted the tempo, the forwards carried hard in attack and then Te’o dotted over for a winning try – it was great work from them.”
England were also forced to adapt to losing Jonny May to the sin-bin inside the first quarter after he tipped Gael Fickou over the horizontal.
“We had another yellow card situation to fix, we went behind which we needed to fix, but that’s why we work hard in training,” Brown said. “We’d rather not have these situations but we do and that’s the nature of sport – you have these situations, you react and you learn. It’s great that we are fixing these problems, but we know our game didn’t go so well.”
England’s next assignment is Saturday’s trip to Cardiff, the setting for a stirring 21-16 victory over Wales in 2015 that saw Brown argue with officials in the tunnel shortly before kick-off after the team were instructed to run on to the pitch ahead of schedule.
“It’s always a big game against Wales and it’s an unbelievable atmosphere there. It will be a great game,” Brown said. “It’s a great stadium, it’s one of my favourite stadiums to play at, but in the Six Nations every away game is special.” CONOR O’SHEA says he wants to see Italy “refereed on a level playing field” after their Six Nations campaign began with a 33-7 home defeat against Wales.
The former Harlequins boss, now Italy’s coaching director, struggled to mask his frustration after Wales cut loose in the second-half to score 30 unanswered points.
Of as much concern to the Irishman was a 16-5 penalty count against his team, and he feels the Azzurri need to change what he believes is a perception about them.
“Rugby is a rollercoaster,” said O’Shea, who made no specific mention of match referee JP Doyle. “Energy comes in different ways in games, and we’ve a big challenge to change a lot of our mentality and to understand that things do go against you. We lost our discipline in the second half.
“The energy being given the whole time to Wales meant it was very difficult for our team to stay on task as they did in the first half, when they were magnificent at times. We have to change perception because we need to make sure both red and blue are looked at in exactly the same way. We know that Wales were the better side in the end, but I thought we were better in the first half.
“We have to make sure we change the perception of people who look at us, so we are refereed on a level playing field. The energy that is driven away and towards an opposition is huge when it is 16-5 [penalty count].
“Our defence in the first half was amazing, so there is lots to be positive about, but we can’t lose a penalty count 16-5 and win matches. We will look at ourselves first. It’s our fault. We will look at what we control, not anyone else, but human nature is human nature and we have to change a perception that people have, not today, but all the time.
“We have to be whiter than white and look at ourselves and what we can do better, not get frustrated when decisions go against you. We are probably talking too much about the referee now. It’s one of the things we have to get our heads around. I have no doubt the penalties given against us were probably right, but only five were given against Wales.”
Despite a fourth win in succession under interim head coach Rob Howley, Wales will need a considerable improvement to threaten next Saturday’s opponents England.
Tries during the final quarter from Jonathan Davies, Liam Williams and George North saw them home and Leigh Halfpenny kicked 18 points as Wales reeled off an 11th successive victory over the Azzurri, who struck first with an Edoardo Gori try that fly-half Carlo Canna converted.
Howley said: “Momentum is important in the Six Nations. Italy are coached by three fantastic coaches and we knew how difficult it would be.” Howley confirmed that fly-half Dan Biggar took a blow to his ribs – he was replaced at half-time by Sam Davies – while North has a haematoma on his thigh. “It’s important we start competitions well,” Howley added. “We haven’t done so since four years ago, really. We can go into the next game with a bit more self-belief and confidence. We want to improve in all areas.”